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245 posts categorized "OkCupid"

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Aug 13 - After being named CEO of OkCupid in May 2016, Elie Seidman revamped the design of the app to include in-depth info about users and requiring them to answer questions about political beliefs.

Q: What has been the most difficult part about transitioning to CEO of an online dating site? A: The real question when I started was, what is the core of this brand? The challenge that I saw was how consumers and customers conceptualize the category. We put our focus into "substance over selfies" - connecting based on shared sensibilities.

Q: Could you explain the "substance over selfies" focus? A: We want people to meet someone based on who they are, not what they look like. We let users create their profiles by answering 15 iconic OkCupid questions.

Q: What is the biggest change happening in online dating right now? A: Swiping apps went through a novelty phase. We're no longer in that phase.

Q: What does OkCupid do about harassment? A: We have a very large and effective moderation team in the U.S. It combines artificial intelligence and machine learning to look at data points to see what's happening. If there is something a machine can't make a decision on, it gets kicked over to human moderators.

Q: What has been the most surprising online dating behavior you've learned about your users? A: Dating habits do vary by city. For example, New York is the very worst U.S. city for guys messaging women, who reply to men's messages only 10% of the time.

Q: What is the biggest difference between meeting people online and meeting people in person? A: There is an ineffable element of chemistry which you can't tell easily online.

Q: Where do big data and algorithms fall short when it comes to love? A: The thing that we at OkCupid have going for us is that while we cannot replace chemistry, what we can do is find a lot of people with shared sensibility.

MASHABLE - Aug 12 - OkCupid is making all current and prospective users pledge that they won't send unwanted sexually explicit messages on the app. In a blog entitled "Because You're Better Than a Dick Pic," the dating app said the member pledge is designed to remind their community of "dating etiquette."

ARSTECHNICA - July 28 - OKCupid users no longer see the "visitors" tab, an "A-list" feature that OKCupid introduced in 2009. Among other features, this automatically informs users whenever someone tapped "like" on their profile, even if they haven't "liked" them back. Those who opt not to pay for A-List had a different path towards this kind of discovery: the free "visitors" tab, which listed every user who looked at their profile. In short, a user could look through and see who looked at them. But as of today, OKCupid now only has one option to reveal that information: A-List subscriptions, which cost $19.95 per month or $59.70 as a six-month bundle.

OKCUPID BLOG - July 12 - Photo commenting is now available to everyone on OKCupid. It is easy to use. When users are on someone's profile and they see a photo they like they can say something about it which creates a new opportunity to connect with someone.

HUFFINGTON POST - June 21 - OKCupid has recently joined forces with acclaimed documentary team The Skin Deep, to create a docuseries that explores the various ways people interact with one another on a first date. The series, {The AND} #FirstDate will peek into couples' first dates. "We're trying to figure out if OKCupid's questions can really facilitate a deeper, introspective look into relationships" said Hans Lueders, a producer at The Skin Deep. Eight #FirstDate videos have been released on YouTube. You can watch them here.

DAILYMAIL.CO.UK - June 4 - OKCupid has observed an increase in the number of users opting for casual sex in April, May and June. In June 33% more people are looking for a one night stand compared to the other eleven months of the year. Researchers say this could be because people are beginning temporary ventures like internships or going on vacation. People revert in the fall and settle for more permanent relationships.

COOK COUNTY RECORD - Apr 21 - A man who paid premiums to access A-list dating prospects on OKCupid, only to find out most were dead ends, is suing Match Group in a $5M class action complaint, accusing the company of setting him and other users up to get stiffed. He said Match Group, charges its premiums ($10 - $20/month), to connect with "A-List" OkCupid customers who "liked" a user's profile. After coughing up the cash, the users "routinely learn that most of the users who like them have inactive accounts".

THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE - Mar 24 - In 2007, the online matchmaking industry was centered around matrimonial sites like Shaadi.com. Ten years down the line, the landscape looks completely different. Online dating is now a growth industry. ~67% of Indian singles know couples dating online, and 33% of the couples surveyed had met online, according to digital research consultancy Mindshift Metrics. The online dating space has been growing at an explosive pace in urban India, driven by Tinder. Alongside international competitor OkCupid, local apps like TrulyMadly and Woo are snapping at Tinder's heels. Newer apps like SirfCoffee and Find Life Over Here (FLOH) are trying to create a middle ground between casual dating and traditional matrimonial sites. Both FLOH and SirfCoffee take the exclusive route — users can't just join, they have to go through a screening that includes detailed application forms and face-to-face interviews, either in person or through video-conferencing.

PHOTOFEELER - Feb 7 - 2010 OKCupid's study on male dating photos fails reproducibility. In the post called The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures, OKCupid said that non-smiling profile pictures had a better response rate. In Tinder's last roundup of the top 100 male profiles, all of them were smiling in their lead picture. According to the latest PhotoFeeler study whether men smile or not makes no statistically-significant difference (except in the case of eye contact and no smile, which is harmful). PhotoFeeler is a tool for testing profile pics.See full article at PhotoFeeler blog

CNET - Feb 26 - Usernames and passwords leaked onto the open Internet earlier this month due to a security bug that affected 3,400 websites, including Uber, Fitbit and OKCupid, according to cybersecurity company Cloudflare. OKCupid didn't provide a comment. The flaw is now fixed and the leaked information has been purged from search engines, meaning it's no longer exposed on the Internet.

7PARK DATA BLOG - Feb 13 - 7Park Data decided to take a look at how people use dating apps around the world and how different apps compare to each other. Based on 7Park Data analysis of weekly active users (WAUs) and time spent in dating apps, Argentina is the most amorous country of them all. As far as the top dating apps globally, based on WAUs and time spent in app, Tinder and Grindr lead the pack. ~84% of Bumble and 41.5% of OkCupid users also use Tinder. Interestingly, only 12.6% of Tinder users try their luck on Bumble and 10.8% on OkCupid. You can download the full report here.

BUZZFEED - Feb 15 - People with learning disabilities said the OkCupid compatibility question was dehumanizing. The site asked users: "Would the world be a better place if people with low IQs were not allowed to reproduce?" Despite a growing petition calling for the question to be taken off the form, it was only this week that OkCupid CEO Elie Seidman said it would be taken down.

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 14 - OkCupid is introducing a new version of its mobile app today, and plans to roll out its full redesign in March. The prior version featured a section called Quickmatch, which was OKC's own version of Tinder. In the new app out today, Quickmatch has been rebranded as DoubleTake where users can see multiple photos all on one page, as well as various details about the person in question, including their profile text. The idea, the company explains, is to give users a deeper look into someone's personality right from the start. DoubleTake was tested with select members ahead of today's public launch, and was found to have tripled the mutual matches, OkCupid claims.

MIRROR.CO.UK - Feb 13 - OkCupid asks its users - "Would the world be a better place if people with low IQs were not allowed to reproduce?" - as part of its personality profiling scheme. Mencap, a UK charity for people with a learning disability, asked the dating site to remove the offending question in May 2016 but says OkCupid has so far refused to respond to its complaints. Mencap figures show 74% of the public believe the question should be removed. Mencap has now launched a petition, directed at OkCupid CEO Elie Seidman, arguing that "discrimination is #NotOKCupid."

CHICAGO TRIBUNE - Feb 10 - According to Match.com's Singles in America survey, 70% of all singles said it's a turnoff if a potential romantic partner regularly smokes marijuana. OkCupid's 2016 data showed that ~50% of OkCupid users answered in the affirmative when asked, "Could you date someone who does drugs?" A number of cannabis-friendly dating sites and apps have gone online in recent years, including My420Mate and High There!. My420mate launched in 2014, and now has ~500k users. Free app High There! bills itself as a social network for the cannabis community. The app has attracted ~300k users, mostly in the U.S., since launching 18 months ago. Dating is only one component of the app. For a more personal touch, there's Molly Peckler, a former matchmaker who launched Highly Devoted in June 2015, a service offering cannabis-friendly life coaching and dating coaching services ranging in cost from $1k - $3k.

OKCUPID BLOG - Feb 6 - Data proves that women are continuously gaining confidence in dating, and beyond. OkCupid discovered that only 20% of single women on the site believe that men should be the heads of their households. That's down from 30% in 2008. Additionally, single women are feeling way less obligated to maintain social standards of beauty, too. Women are ~15% more likely to ask someone they like a lot out on a date than women a decade ago. Women who send the first message on OkCupid are 2.5 times more likely to receive a response than men who do.

PRWEB - Jan 11 - According to the recent Consumer Reports (CR) survey, 44% of survey respondents who tried online dating said the experience led to a serious long-term relationship or marriage. CR surveyed ~115k people. They were also asked to rate sites and apps based on overall satisfaction. OkCupid, Tinder and Grindr received marginally higher ratings than paid sites. Here is the rating result.

As you can see people are highly frustrated. They gave online dating sites the lowest satisfaction scores Consumer Reports has ever seen for services rendered—lower even than for tech-support providers, notoriously poor performers in CR ratings.

WASHINGTON POST - Jan 9 - Jolliff, 29, has been blind since birth due to what's known as Leber Congenital Amaurosis. She can distinguish lights from darks, and her seeing-eye dog helps her navigate the world. Yet her dog can't help her swipe right or left on Tinder. So she seeks romance elsewhere. Last fall, Jolliff signed up for eHarmony and OkCupid. "I want the 'deeper' connection. I like being able to see how much effort a guy is willing to put into crafting his profile." Both Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel, two popular dating apps, have done little to accommodate the blind or visually impaired community. Tinder's VP of global communications branding, Rosette Pambakian, declined to comment, saying she didn't think it "makes sense" to include Tinder in a story about visually impaired daters. Dawoon Kang, COO of Coffee Meets Bagel, said she hadn't given blind or visual impairments much consideration. But she's open to it.

Mark Brooks: This Washington Post reporter appears to have not appreciated Tinder's refusal to comment. Granted, its not the easiest question to handle. This is where the help of a trusted intermediary can come in handy. When I handle press calls for my clients I act as an analyst, and am quoted as such. The press trust me to guide them to the right spokespeople, and to guide them on the 'fit' of their subject matter. Please see CourtlandBrooks.com.

COSMOPOLITAN - July 13 - OkCupid analyzed the words on 190K user profiles and lined them up with their political leanings and answers to dating survey questions. Conservatives post more about the outdoors and shooting ranges, and like Frank Sinatra, John Mayer, and George Strait. They're more likely to say they like all music "except rap," and love John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Liberals more frequently write about museums, yoga, and crying, and love Kendrick Lamar and hip-hop. Conservatives interested in sex are more likely to write about steak, grilling, and write the word "firearms," while conservatives more interested in love write about Dr. Pepper and the word "guns." Liberals who want sex write the word "booze" more, while liberals who are seeking love write about avocados and vegetarian food.